John Chartier, a former treasurer for the Clark County Republican Party, pleaded with jurors to spare his life on Monday and David Wilcox offered a quiet apology to the family of murder victims Rachel Bernat and her father Carlos Aragon.
"What I heard here today was not what I understood Rachel and Carlos to be about," Wilcox said. "It's pretty much 180 degrees from what I understood they were. I'd like to say I'm very sorry."
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Bernat was Chartier's ex-wife. She and Aragon were stabbed and left for dead at their home in 2004. According to prosecutors, the crime was rooted in a custody dispute over the couple's young son.
Wilcox and Chartier were convicted of first-degree murder on Friday and jurors are expected to decide this week whether they should be sentenced to death.
Wilcox, a friend of Chartier's, acted out of loyalty when Chartier asked him to kill Bernat and Aragon, prosecutors said. Prosecutors showed jurors a handwritten note from Chartier to Wilcox that outlined his intent. Chartier also instructed Wilcox to destroy the note so police wouldn't find it.
During Chartier's statement, he made a tearful request that the jury consider giving him a life sentence with the possibility of parole. In addition to his young son, Chartier has two daughters who live in Texas. While jailed and awaiting trial, Chartier has been able to renew and strengthen his relationship with them, he said. He said he also wants to be a father to his son, Ezekiel.
"Killing me is not going to bring either of them back," Chartier said of Bernat and Aragon. "Killing me will add to the tragedy of three children."
Family members of the victims reminded jurors that Bernat also had two daughters who depended on her support.
Pamela O'Connell, Rachel's older sister, said the girls have been profoundly affected by the loss. In court, she read aloud a letter from Bernat's 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who still aches because she never got the chance to patch up an argument she'd had with her mother shortly before the murders took place.
"'I think about how much I hate John and Mr. Wilcox's guts,'" O'Connell read from the letter.
Carlos M. Aragon, Bernat's brother and his father's namesake, said the loss of two family members has been devastating.
"It horrified us," Aragon said of the murders. "Then what happened started to sink in and it terrified us. We don't live with a feeling of security anymore."
Defense attorneys for Wilcox attempted to convince jurors that he was vulnerable to the influence of Chartier because of mental and physical damage he suffered while serving in the U.S. Marines.
Wilcox had survived a deadly 1983 terrorist bombing of a building in Beirut used by Marines on a peace-keeping mission. His brother, Burton Wilcox, also was a Marine stationed in Beirut and helped search through the rubble and body parts, looking for his brother, he said. The attack killed 250 people.
"I was digging frantically," Burton Wilcox said in a taped statement. "My fingers were bleeding."
The traumatic experience caused both men to suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome. Burton said the condition can make a person vulnerable to the suggestions of others and inclined to act ways that are out of character.
That testimony roused objections from Chartier's lawyers, who said that Burton Wilcox was not qualified to speak as an expert on the disorder.
Attorney Craig Mueller asked Judge Stewart Bell to grant a mistrial because Burton Wilcox's taped deposition was hearsay and not relevant. Mueller also objected because he had not been given the chance to question the witness.
Bell denied the request, prompting Mueller to say: "I believe the court is in plain error on this."
Family members of both convicted men were puzzled, hurt and emotional as they took the stand to plead for mercy. Wilcox, his siblings said, was intelligent and bright, helping to support his single-parent family during his Maine boyhood by raking blueberries and making Christmas wreaths. That money went to pay for school clothes and property taxes.
Chartier, his family said, was also an achiever who completed college and went on to become a certified public accountant. He's the son of a former Dallas police officer and a retired teacher. His grandfather was a Baptist minister.
"I love him very much," said Christi Chartier, 18, of her father.
And although Chartier said it must sound strange, her father's incarceration has given them both a chance to know each other better. John Chartier writes and calls her and her sister regularly. And they write him back, sending photos and notes about what's going on in their lives.
"This has given us a chance to connect in a way we've never been able to before," Christi Chartier said. "It would be detrimental not to have that."
